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RVC, ASI and the Skolkovo Foundation announce the start of Public Consultations on NTI's technology competitions

12.12.2017

On December 12, 2017 at the conference "NTI's Technology competitions" RVC, ASI and Skolkovo Foundation launched Public Consultations on NTI's technology competitions. The discussions will last until January 31, 2018.

Public consultations is an open Internet platform to examine and finalize projects for NTI's technology competitions. The consultations' purpose is to allow business representatives, engineers, scientists, start-ups and field-specific universities to comment on market prospects, technology advantages as well as topicality of technologies developed under NTI competitions. One of the consultations’ tasks is prompt collection of questions and dissemination of answers with regard to the arrangement of NTI's technology contests.

The platform users are invited to discuss questions devoted to the topicality of technological barrier as well as to contribute to the technology and market analysis of the NTI's competitions. The participants of Public Consultations will share their knowledge about existing devices with characteristics above the technology barrier and Russian companies which are potentially able to overcome this barrier.

In terms of market analysis, the users will answer questions about the markets, products and services which will be in demand for devices and technologies as well as about new solutions which are expected to be created by using devices and their further modifications developed by the participants.

"Technology competition is a great model. These competitions deal with the globally unsolved engineering problems, said Alexander Povalko, General Director of RVC. “We had a big debate. We wanted to make a kind of import substitution with our products less sophisticated than foreign counterparts, but have ended up making the best project in the world. We are eager to get potential ideas from the community in the future. We will support this project."

Kirill Kaem, Senior Vice President for Innovations at Skolkovo Foundation, noted that "the teamы participating in the competitions will get their projects evaluated by experts, use laboratory services of the Skolkovo Technology Park and Skoltekh and garner the support of the Skolkovo community. To succeed is not just to win. To succeed is to raise investments for the technologies that you create."

Albert Efimov, Head of the Robotics Centre at Sberbank PJSC, emphasized the factors which the contest participants should pay attention to: "Motivation - without motivation everything else does not make sense. The second important thing is competence. Thirdly, things you are doing must be in demand." He added that the most important thing is not just to win the competition, but to create a community of solvers.

Director of the ASI's Young Professionals: "This will not be just a specific technology competition; we plan to bind our cooperation with universities and technology centres to this system. The competitions have a great potential for deployment, especially in terms of logic of NTI matrix. I sincerely hope that other contests will follow our model so that the victory is awarded not for tons of paperwork, but for the result submitted."

Technology competitions under the National Technological Initiative aim to determine the best technologies and innovative products, including breakthrough technology solutions for sophisticated scientific and technology problems capable to overcome technology barriers in NTI's priority sectors and markets and ensure competitiveness of Russia on high-tech markets. The winner of the technology competition will receive a cash prize for a breakthrough solution to a significant problem. The competitions officially started on November 7, 2017 in St. Petersburg as part of the barcamp "National Technology Revolution 20.35".

You can read the details and register for Public Consultation by following this link.